PAEONIA PASSION

Warmerdam Paeonia B.V.

Our Warmerdam-family has been having green blood running through their veins for a very long time. At the end of the 19th century no crop specialization was present yet. In those days mixed cultures were common practice in our home area. Vegetables were the main crops, and some peonies ('Duchesse de Nemours', 'Rubra Plena') were grown already as well. My late grandfather expanded the peony assortment with particularly 'Sarah Bernhardt'. Next to peonies, he mainly grew broad beans (see picture on the top left), strawberries, fresias and carnations.

Only one of my grandparents' five children was truly enthusiastic about peonies. Luckily for me, this happened to be my father! My dad, Wout Warmerdam, switched to simply and solely floriculture. With this the vegetable growing days were over, as it was for many nurseries in and around Roelofarendsveen (our town of origin) in those days. Fresia, Ornithogalum and especially Paeonia became our main crops. In the 80's and 90's of the last century my father added a dozen varieties, bringing the total number of different kinds of peonies that he grew to around 15. Among these were the still very popular varieties 'Red Charm', 'Shining Light' and 'Pêcher'.

Since the year 2000, I (Ruud) entered the peony adventure with complete devotion. We are very proud to call ourselves 100% specialized in peonies for such a long time now, all side crops have definitely moved to the history books now. We continuously add very many new varieties to our peony collection, resulting in the well over 1000 varieties that we currently grow with great pleasure and devotion. From this huge collection, we will be offering exactly 251 kinds of peonies in 2021!

We review the varieties in our stock every year, and the number of different peonies proves to be ever growing. We aim for growing an assortment of distinctive peonies which have great garden- and/or cut flower qualities. Next to supplying wholesale customers such as colleague growers, export companies, webshops, garden centers and landscapers, we also ship peonies to retail customers all over the world. In 2018, we have added the only group of peonies that we never had offered before: Tree Peonies! After years of testing, we are now confident to sell these magical woodies in a yearly increasing variety - and all on their own root system for quickest and best results for our customers!

The number of roots we grow of a certain cultivar is highly variable, anywhere from 10 to 10,000. Next to this root production, we also grow 21 varieties of peonies for the cut flower market on about 1.3 hectares of land (3 acres). In total we grow peonies on little over 3 hectares (about 7 acres). Nowadays this means we are a fairly small-sized company, certainly in The Netherlands. We intend to keep it this way, to secure our high quality standard.

A lot has happened for us in 2019. We literally have made a big move to a new workplace, on a central location from our production fields with lots of new equipment including state of the art cold storage rooms and a lot more space. This already has given us lots of working comfort and job satisfaction, and it is evident that all the innovations have clearly contributed to bringing our quality another level higher. Also in 2019, the legal status of our business has moved from a sole proprietorship to a private limited company (B.V.).

2020 was a difficult year, with the passing away of my Dad in the middle of flowering season. And of course the global pandemic, which we all have been having troubles coping with. Nevertheless we kept our head high, and we continued to improve our growing and work methods. Biggest thing we initiated last year was the transition to drip line irrigation and fertigation. We look forward very much to start working with this very promising growing tool in 2021.

For us, it is without a doubt that we will keep on growing peonies and nothing else. Living your hobby and passion as a profession - we just cannot imagine it can get any better than this! In November 2008, with Luke the next generation Warmerdam has been born. At the end of flowering season 2011, Luke was joined by his beautiful little sister Nikita (a genuine peony-baby!). Who knows they too will get seduced by the beauty of peonies, and will continue the peony tradition in our family a fitfth generation... Only time will tell. In any case, during this time we will enjoy our children and our peonies to the fullest!

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